033 Nyman E - Tl'anaxéedákhw - Translation.txt

{Number = 033}
{Type = Translation}
{Title = Tlʼanaxîdákhw / Tlʼanaxîdákhw}
{Author = Seidayaa / Elizabeth Nyman}
{Clan = Yanyeidí; Ḵaach.ádi yádi}
{Source = Nyman & Leer 1993: 219–255}
{Translator =  Weihá / Jeff Leer}
{Page = 219}
1	They always used to tell me stories
2	and I paid attention to what they said.
3	They told me this story about the Tlʼanaxîdákhw.
4	A certain woman's
5	due date was fast approaching;
6	she was traveling along camping with [her] people.
7	They never used to have their babies at home;
8	they would erect a hut separate [from the other dwellings] for
9	them.
10	Now
11	a certain woman was having labor pains—
12	they had come from somewhere
13	and were traveling along camping.
14	There was a small lake there; they camped on the shore there;
15	my! they put up huts facing each other;
16	they built only one fire in the midst of them.
17	The woman finally went into labor, they say.
18	So then
19	they gathered around her and
20	erected a separate hut for her.
21	The inside of the hut
22	they fixed up nicely for her;
23	[they made it] nice and warm.
24	Then
25	the women—
26	women like her, her mother's sister
27	or her older sister or her mother—
28	gathered around her.
29	Eventually the baby was born,
30	and they put it in a cradleboard
31	and strapped its hands in.
32	They set up a hammock for it
33	and laid it on it.
34	After so many days
{Page = 221}
35	a bird
36	was hopping about on the lake shore.
37	It was called the “Lake-bottom-child.”
38	“What's that Lake-bottom-child there up to now?”
39	they said,
40	the youngsters said.
41	“There it goes hopping that way again,” they said, too.
42	In so doing, they ridiculed it
43	when they said “It's hopping around.
44	That Lake-bottom-child has come hopping that way again,”
45	so they said.
46	Then
47	too, it appears that nobody told them to stop saying that;
48	they intentionally insulted it.
49	So those
50	lynx blankets,
51	beaver blankets,
52	and other kinds,
53	wolverine blankets,
54	and others, various kinds,
55	wolf blankets, all kinds of blankets—
56	they all lay around sleeping in them,
57	and this way, too, like that.
58	When they were fast asleep
59	the Lake-bottom-child came hopping among them.
60	It went about pulling all their eyes up out [of the sockets]—
61	first it removed the people's eyes.
62	For some reason they didn't feel it.
63	[It went among] those on this side,
64	the people, and those on this side,
65	and it followed the direction of the sun
66	walking among the people like that.
67	Eventually it removed all the people's eyes.
68	What was the matter?
69	It was now dawn
70	and eventually
71	it became full daylight.
72	At this time
73	they usually started a fire for the woman.
74	What was the matter? Nobody came any more.
75	Finally, after two days, the woman
{Page = 223}
76	called over that way.
77	“Will one of you please come here;
78	I'm freezing cold,” she said.
79	[There was no reply]; nobody said a word.
80	“What could the matter be?” she thought.
81	That night something had come running up and trying to get at her.
82	It kept on doing this to her blanket.
83	Her child, too,
84	it ran up and tried to get at his face.
85	It must have been trying to pluck out his eyes.
86	It kept on doing this to him;
87	“What is this? What is it that
88	keeps running up and trying to get at me,” she thought.
89	Finally it was daylight.
90	It was no longer there.
91	Then she called over again.
92	“I must make the effort.”
93	Long ago when a woman had had a child
94	they would keep her in bed for over a month.
95	Not until she was quite well again
96	was she helped off her bed;
97	she would walk around with the aid of a cane.
98	So [the woman] took up her cane and started
99	over there to
100	the campsite.
101	Lo and behold,
102	[they were] all [lying motionless]
103	and there was no longer a fire, either;
104	it was out.
105	So she pulled back [the blankets] to uncover their faces.
106	Lo and behold, there was nothing but blood
107	filling every one of their eye sockets.
108	She went among them like that.
109	There were a lot of people, they say,
110	and not one of them
111	was untouched.
112	She kept hearing it over there—
113	I skipped this part of the story—
114	she kept hearing it over there,
115	“Toasted eyeballs!
116	Toasted eyeballs!”
117	it was hopping around like that,
118	“Toasted eyeballs!
119	Toasted eyeballs!”
120	it was saying,
121	that thing.
{Page = 225}
122	Hm, she was getting suspicious of it.
123	That's actually what it was
124	that she heard over there,
125	that bird,
126	the Lake-bottom-child.
127	It was a bird, they say,
128	but it lived on the lake bottom.
129	That is what
130	they offended with their words.
131	“Oh, my! What is to become of me,”
132	she thought, they say.
133	First of all, she sat and wept.
134	Her mothers and fathers, her brothers
135	and sisters,
136	her mother's brothers
137	and her father's brothers,
138	she lamented them;
139	she was weeping.
140	“I wonder what is to become of me,”
141	she thought, they say.
142	Then, they say,
143	the first of the
144	blankets draped over [one of the people]
145	she pulled over her shoulders,
146	the woman,
147	and her child too,
148	she wrapped another [blanket] around him like this,
149	one after the other—
150	maybe marten blankets,
151	and other kinds, lynx blankets,
152	she kept putting them on, one on top of another.
153	Finally she was getting quite round, they say,
154	and her child, too.
155	Her child was no longer visible.
156	For some reason
157	eventually she didn't want
158	the blankets to go to waste on [the bodies] lying there.
159	so she just put all of them on.
160	Then
161	when it was just getting daylight
{Page = 227}
162	she was about to start walking aimlessly
163	she and her child—
164	perhaps she was carrying him on her back in a papoose board.
165	Then she stood, they say,
166	looking off into the distance.
167	“What shall I become now?”
168	she was praying.
169	“What shall I become now?”
170	She thought about it,
171	standing there;
172	she spoke the words slowly and deliberately.
173	After that she said again,
174	“What shall I become now?”
175	After she said it the fourth time,
176	“Tlʼanaxîdákhw,”—
177	perhaps someone thought she should become that.
178	“Oh, yes, I will become the Tlʼanaxîdákhw.
179	so that I may always give aid to poor people,”
180	this is what she prayed.
181	Then she left and went away.
182	She had a lot of animal skins on her
183	so she walked along slowly.
184	After she had gone a certain distance
185	the baby
186	began to fuss on her back.
187	She shushed him, walking along with him.
188	He was crying louder and louder.
189	“Let poor people always hear your voice,”
190	she prayed as her child cried.
191	“That will be the way it happens [that they recognize us],”
192	she was praying.
193	Therefore
194	whoever
195	believes this story,
196	she will give aid to him, so they used to tell me.
197	What had been blankets was no longer blankets,
198	[it was fur;] she had long fur, they say.
199	and the baby, too, they say.
200	Only his face [was visible] down below.
{Page = 229}
201	Now then
202	my father's people used to be from Telegraph Creek;
203	they were of the Khàch.ádi clan.
204	It was their uncle;
205	his name was Natsʼáł.
206	His father and mother
207	had only the one child,
208	their son.
209	They raised him with much care, they say.
210	Now long ago, they say,
211	they used to conceal those bones in their palms—
212	they are called attahì—
213	I haven't seen them myself—
214	they used them to gamble with, they say.
215	They would guess which hand it was in.
216	So it happened that they won everything from him;
217	they just
218	kept beating him at gambling.
219	Whatever [he had],
220	his possessions, the things he had been given, he kept wagering them
221	and they kept winning them from him.
222	Then
223	one time his mother and father
224	were walking up to the mountains—
225	[he had been losing] the whole time.
226	After a while his mother said,
227	“I know what!
228	My son
229	needs a woman.
230	He does nothing but gamble.
231	Let us enquire after a woman for him,
232	so she can keep him company,”
233	she said.
234	So she went among the people.
235	[Among] the young women
236	who were teenagers, old enough to marry,
237	she asked for one or another from their mother.
238	But the young women
239	said, “He gambles too much,
240	too much; he'd never be a good [husband].”
{Page = 231}
241	They said what their mothers told them to say.
242	When their mother was asked,
243	they too would say, “He gambles too much.
244	There's no way
245	he could provide a good living, it seems to us,”
246	they said of him.
247	They didn't think he was good enough for them;
248	thatʼs what itʼs called.
{Comment = Line 249 is omitted in the original text.}
250	Now
251	an old woman had adopted her granddaughter
252	when she was small.
253	Her mother and father had died.
254	There was no one to look after her,
255	so she was raising her.
256	It seems when she reached menarche,
257	[she was secluded] behind the people
258	[in] a hut;
259	it was far behind the people that she made the hut
260	[for] her granddaughter.
261	Toward the back [ofthe hut] shehung up ground-squirrel [skins];
262	she had her sit in seclusion behind [the skins].
263	She was sewing a hat from some [kind of skin].
264	Wherever the clan moved
265	she would follow along, living behind them.
266	Perhaps she had her in seclusion for quite some time, they say.
267	Now
268	Natsʼáł
269	had gambled away everything in his cache;
270	only
271	the clothes on his back he had to his name.
272	A black
273	bandana or something, he had it tied around his neck,
274	only that and his coat and his boots
275	he had to his name.
276	Without food, too, he went off;
277	he had nothing to eat, I guess;
278	they won it all from him.
279	He ran up after his father and mother.
280	There was a marshy place with moss on it;
281	the trail led across it into the valley.
{Page = 233}
282	And he heard, “Wah, wah, wah, wa-ah,”
283	that's what he heard.
284	So he ran off toward it,
285	and then further on.
286	No, [the sound] must be coming from somewhere else.
287	He ran back there
288	tearing off his clothing and casting it aside,
289	and his shoes;
290	naked,
291	he was running over there.
292	[After he had gotten] so far,
293	this time he would see her, he thought,
294	and up ahead [he heard her]
295	turn again and speak to
296	the baby.
297	She was shushing [the baby];
298	its mother was walking with it, like this.
299	Now long ago they used to call [these ear pendants] gunłênxw,
300	even men [used to wear them], like this,
301	they would bore holes [in their ears],
302	here;
303	they used to fashion them out of porcupine quills.
304	Then they would fasten them to their ears with sinew;
305	they are also called gukkadzàs [earrings].
306	Now he suddenly remembered them
307	and plucked them off and cast them away.
308	There was nothing up ahead, either.
309	Then
310	he was running to where he heard her.
311	Again the sound came from further ahead—
312	he had forgotten to urinate on his palms.
313	Immediately he remembered that too, and
314	urinated on his palms;
315	he threw it up in the air four times, like this.
316	There was something large walking along over there,
317	[with her head turned], talking to her child on her back.
318	From far off he did this to it,
319	and it flew up off her back
320	and landed in his arms, like this
{Page = 235}
321	He seized it.
322	He ran way up along a slanting tree—
323	way up high!
324	He was sitting there
325	with the baby.
326	Now then
327	she turned around and sat facing him.
328	“Give me my baby.”
329	“Will my slaves have many houses?”
330	he spoke out.
331	She didn't [answer] with words, they say,
332	she just nodded her head like this.
333	“Will my slaves have slaves too?”
334	She nodded “yes” to him.
335	Everything—nothing was left out, they say—
336	animals,
337	martens, and so on; mink,
338	lynx, he didn't skip even one.
339	He said,
340	“It will heap up in piles for me,
341	my wealth;
342	let it be like that for me.”
343	She nodded “yes” to him with her head.
344	[Finally] he ran out of ideas;
345	there was nothing else
346	for him to ask her for.
347	He sat there with the baby a long time, they say.
348	To this side, toward where he was speaking to,
349	he kept plucking off its fur.
350	It seems, they say, that the cradleboard
351	was sort of laced up this way;
352	that's where he plucked it off.
353	Then he uttered his last [wish]—
354	there was nothing else he could think of—
355	“Go to the bathroom over there for me.”
356	She didn't want to do that, though;
357	she shook her head, “No!”
358	“Well, then, I won't give you the baby,”
359	he told her.
{Page = 237}
360	After he had asked her four times
361	she finally went like this with her head.
362	There was a windfall lying there, they say;
363	on this side of it
364	she sat down,
365	the Tlʼanaxîdákhw.
366	She continued to sit there.
367	After she had sat there for quite some time she stood up
368	and returned to where she had been walking along.
369	She went like this to the baby and from way up there
370	it flew onto her back.
371	She went off with it, shushing it,
372	“Hahay, hahay, hahay,”
373	she walked along with it.
374	He heard her voice even from far off
375	and eventually he could just barely hear her
376	shushing it.
377	Quickly he ran down to
378	where she had gone to the bathroom for him.
379	What in the world?—[she had removed the earth] from a large area,
380	so nice and neat; it was like a pit.
381	Above it—
382	there was what they call gán tuxʼúxʼu [dry rot]
383	underneath it—
384	above it, they say, it was [floating on something] like a rainbow—
385	it was not water, either, they say.
386	It was as if it were floating on it,
387	large nuggets of it.
388	Apparently it was gold, they say;
389	there were eight nuggets.
390	He picked it up with the earth beneath it.
391	Then he spread out the [cloth] he had tied around his neck
392	and tied the ends together with that [inside].
393	Oh, I skipped the part where—
394	when he jumped into the tree like that,
395	“Ah!”, she went like this to him.
396	[She scratched] four [strips] from his back like this;
397	she slashed him with her nails
398	down to his buttocks.
399	Her clawmarks were quite wide, they say,
{Page = 239}
400	four different ones going down along his back.
401	After a long time the [scabs]
402	[peeled] off like this—
403	whichever [member]
404	of the family
405	of Natsʼáł
406	took a piece of it, [he would also become wealthy]—
407	they call it dànâkw [body medicine].
408	Now he was sitting there where he had heard her.
409	Now the footprints of that—
410	the Tlʼanaxîdákhw,
411	[it was] as if she had walked through snow,
412	that's what the ground was like, they say,
413	where she had walked by.
414	The dirt from between her toetracks
415	he scratched off as well.
416	There were eight of them, her footprints, [that he cleaned off];
417	he picked them up and put them away with those [nuggets].
418	He walked away.
419	How in the world was it that—?—
420	it was as if he were held spellbound there, they say,
421	where he heard her voice.
422	He could now just barely hear her
423	shushing her child on her back.
424	Finally he left there.
425	[He had] only one blanket, what they call a Hudson Bay blanket,
426	only one;
427	he tossed it over [his shoulder] here, they say.
428	Lo and behold, his mother saw him
429	down in the valley.
430	“My son is coming up over there.”
431	She picked up a king salmon belly
432	and cut it up.
433	She roasted it.
434	“My son is hungry,” she thought.
435	As he walked [across the fire from her],
436	[she offered him some] from the corner of the fire,
437	“I've roasted this for you to eat, son,”
438	she said to him.
{Page = 241}
439	“I'm not hungry.
440	I'm going to sleep,” he simply said.
441	Then he took some juniper and from the bottom
442	up he broke off the branches—
443	juniper boughs are sort of spread apart.
444	So he broke off the branches [from the base] up,
445	and went inside with his blanket [to lie down].
446	His father hadn't come [home] yet;
447	he was out hunting groundhogs, setting snares for them.
448	After a while
449	his father came [home].
450	He went to his wife
451	and she told him,
452	“My son has come [home].
453	I was roasting that [salmon] for him
454	but he didn't want to eat it.
455	He has gone under the juniper [boughs];
456	he's probably sleeping there.”
457	They already suspected something had happened to him.
458	“Now why doesn't my son eat anything?”
459	she said.
460	Then
461	eventually evening fell;
462	the next morning
463	his father went to him.
464	“What is going on with you?
465	We suspect something has happened to you.”
466	Then he told his father
467	that he had received a supernatural blessing,
468	but he didn't tell him the whole story.
469	An inexplicable feeling of sadness came over him.
470	He was weeping, too;
471	he could not catch his breath for weeping, they say.
472	The third night he dreamt of the woman.
473	Out of nowhere
474	a young [woman] was walking toward him.
475	She [had her face turned] aside, laughing at him.
476	Then she said to him,
477	“I am the one who gave you the blessing.
478	I am the Tlʼanaxîdákhw.”
479	Then he dreamt about how the people were to treat him.
480	The [river named] Shànaxhhîni (valley river),
{Page = 243}
481	[which] flows along here,
482	here where he had slept in the juniper—
483	somehow [in the dream] everything was prepared—
484	that [river] was to be dammed up
485	in eight places.
486	“You are to pack dry leaves there,
487	and it is to be like a dam, a beaver dam, like this.
488	They are to dig down at the place you are to sit;
489	you are to line it with moss.
490	The first time they toss the pile [of leaves] over you, [say],
491	“Good fortune, Tlʼanaxîdákhw
492	has broken [the dam so that it spills] over me.
493	So that everything will be prepared for me to have,
494	let me not leave without every last thing I came for.”
495	His various slaves, let his slaves be numerous,
496	and let them have slaves themselves.
497	He [was to] pray thus and they were to toss them down.
498	Finally, when they have tossed the last pile down,
499	she instructed him,
500	“Only the top of your head is to protrude;
501	[the rest of you is to be buried] in the dry leaves
502	and the spruce needles,
503	various kinds of dry leaves.
504	Everything, whatever you have prayed for,
505	everything [will be] prepared for you
506	when they do that to you,”
507	she said to him.
508	After she had departed from him
509	an inexplicable feeling of well-being came over him.
510	[He sat there] peacefully.
511	Then
512	they fasted with him for four days,
513	with no water or food.
514	Then as he had dreamt
515	they did that to him.
516	Again they fasted until evening for four days,
517	eight nights [altogether].
518	Then from here
519	the young man went forth joyously.
{Page = 245}
520	No longer was he foolish as before, [wasting his life on] gambling.
521	Then [he caught so many] groundhogs
522	it was just as if he were heaping them up.
523	They finally came down from the mountains.
524	No longer was he the one that had used to sit gambling.
525	They saw him differently.
526	Even when he was still single
527	his slaves had many houses outside [of his house];
528	he was a young man.
529	No longer was he the one they had thought themselves too good for,
530	those young women;
531	every one of them painted up her face
532	for him to see,
533	one after another, the same way.
534	After a while
535	they said to their son,
536	“Perhaps it is now long enough
537	for you to have been single.
538	You have many aunts; let us enquire after one for you.”
539	“No, I don't want them,”
540	he said.
541	Some time afterward, oh my!
542	he kept going over there
543	and packing things back.
544	He was accumulating stores of all sorts of animals.
545	Eventually he had eight caches;
546	he kept squeezing all kinds of furs into them.
547	[He and his parents] lived with their houses facing each other;
548	only one fire was built between them.
549	Their son lived right across from their house.
550	It was fall, they say; there were little patches of snow.
551	Then
552	[his mother] got up;
553	they got up and built a fire.
554	“Where is my son?
555	only his blanket is lying there.”
556	He had a fur blanket
557	in which he slept.
558	“Only my son's blanket is lying [on the floor] across there,”
559	[his mother] said.
{Page = 247}
560	“Why don't you go [see];
561	perhaps he has sneaked over there to his aunts,”
562	his father said.
563	So his mother left.
564	She went to one hut after the other.
565	“No, he's not here,
566	no;”
567	covering a large area, she went from house to house;
568	he wasn't anywhere.
569	“No, he is nowhere;
570	he is not at anyone's house,”
571	his mother said.
572	Then
573	she followed his tracks over the patches of snow.
574	Lo and behold, he had turned onto the return trail.
575	That
576	young woman
577	who had no other and father,
578	only a grandmother,
579	back in the woods, the one who had gone through menarche,
580	his footprints led in [to her hut].
581	So she asked her grandmother;
582	“I haven't seen him.
583	Why don't you look along that side,”
584	she told her.
585	So she looked [behind] the ground squirrel skins hung up there;
586	lo and behold, he was sleeping in her arms.
587	Then he came out into the open with her.
588	Then [his mother] just let it be and went back [home];
589	she left and went home, they say.
590	To be an orphan was considered a disgrace.
591	For one who has a father and mother
592	she is no match;
593	that was the saying long ago.
594	She was held in contempt.
595	So
596	when he came in
597	his mother asked him,
598	“Here are your fine aunts;
599	there are the young women, all old enough to marry.
600	We wanted to enquire after one of them for you,”
601	he was told.
602	“No, I don't want them,” he shook his head.
603	“I don't want them; they thought I wasn't good enough for them.
604	They said I gambled too much.
{Page = 249}
605	From now on
606	I want to live with that orphan.
607	She never said anything [bad] about me [like the others did].
608	I want you to enquire after her for me,"
609	he said.
610	Oh, my! they started off,
611	his clan sisters and his mother,
612	the women of the Khàch.ádi clan.
613	At her house—what an event!—
614	they arrived like that at the old woman's house.
615	“My son said he wanted your grandchild.
616	He doesn't want
617	any of his aunts
618	to be taken in by us for him to live with.
619	Thatʼs all right.
620	Let it be as my son wishes.
621	They will ask for her hand in marriage.
622	Bring her out of seclusion.”
623	Then they went back home.
624	She took the ground-squirrel blanket from
625	where she had hung it
626	and lay down fresh [balsam] boughs
627	and had [the orphan] sit there.
628	A scarf made out of something or other
629	was pulled over her head.
630	Then he came there,
631	Natsʼáł
632	and sat down beside her.
633	At this point his clan sisters and his mother,
634	his older brothers,
635	and mother's brothers, all of them,
636	were bringing furs;
637	the pile grew higher and higher.
638	Then a female and a male slave
639	were both sent to the old woman.
640	Then
641	There were caches full of
642	her granddaughter's wedding gifts, furs.
643	Then they brought her out.
644	No longer was she the one not considered good enough.
645	Each of them held a stone knife, they say,
{Page = 251}
646	in order to slash the girl's face to ribbons.
647	Then
648	they went forth with the orphan.
649	Their slaves
650	were [as numerous] as they had been when the clan moved there;
651	so their slaves—
652	even their slaves
653	had slaves.
654	My goodness! they kept bringing furs for her.
655	Now
656	that young woman didn't just sit idle, they say.
657	She kept busy with her adze,
658	getting firewood.
659	[Her husband] would tell her not to,
660	but as soon as her husband went hunting [she would start on it].
661	Now
662	there was a tree, perhaps quite stout, they say,
663	and those people used to chop here and there at the trunk.
664	Its branches went way up;
665	they were gnarled.
666	They would always give up [after chopping a while],
667	so they would always shake their heads at it [and walk away], they say.
668	Now that young woman went up to it
669	and set her axe to it, and
670	then the other side,
671	and eventually it started to break.
672	When it hit the ground, they say,
673	it bounced back from the earth in two places.
674	It was as long as from here to there; it broke in two
675	toward the tip.
676	Then she proceeded to cut the limbs off it.
677	They were perhaps as long as over to there, [the length of] a winter house.
678	Then she chopped them apart.
679	“What is the matter with this place here?—
680	it broke here and over there,”
681	she thought.
682	So she looked along the side of it,
683	and the tree had split apart like this,
684	at the heart of the wood.
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685	Lo and behold, right here there was a nest,
686	a “dry rot nest.”
687	There were some small round objects on it, they say;
688	they were red;
689	there were eight of them on it.
690	It was “wood kidneys” that she had chopped into.
691	This time she was the one who received a supernatural blessing.
692	Then again they proceeded to fast for it,
693	again, eight days
694	they fasted for it.
695	That time it was just as if water were gushing over them;
696	then, as we say, they became very rich.
697	Again, I guess,
698	the places they had moved to
699	were [full of] nothing but slaves, they say.
700	Then
701	they grew so old they shrank with age, and then
702	they died [at the same time],
703	he and his wife.
704	Perhaps they had prayed [that they should die together] too.
705	Now
706	this is how my father—
707	his name was Nêxhʼw—
708	his relatives,
709	the Khàch.ádi clan, this is how they were,
710	and my father as well.
711	So
712	when he and my grandmother returned
713	to his ancestral country,
714	then, they say—
715	[Natsʼáł] had died long ago—
716	the scabs on his back
717	[and] the Tlʼanaxîdákhw's excrement,
718	[he put them inside] a trunk this big; it was called Nàdagùch.
719	Inside it—after he had brought [back] furs—
720	they would pluck some [fur off and put it] inside it.
721	They kept the Tlʼanaxîdákhw's excrement inside it,
722	and where she had slashed his back with her nails,
723	the scab.
724	Then they broke some off
725	and gave it to my father, to Nêxhʼw.
726	“This is so you will be lucky.”
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727	Then [he caught so many] foxes
728	it was just as if he was picking them up off the ground,
729	my father.
730	But they say that the people did not know how to use it,
731	and piece by piece
732	the Tlʼanaxîdákhw's excrement vanished.
733	Finally there was only one piece left inside there,
734	and the scabs from his back
735	who knows where they disappeared to.
736	They didn't know how to use it, they say.
737	This is what they used to tell me.
738	Well, that's all I know of it.